The roof was doing a decent job of shielding him from the harsh light of the Death Star but that was going to end when the light started shining directly in through the giant hole in the car, which faced roughly southwest. He was going to have to move very carefully and not let the heavy door fall off of him. It was his only defense against getting fried to a crisp.

The Death Star had moved noticeably past its peak by the time Petra finished printing the big cylinder. Nick failed to catch it when it detached, and it almost rolled out of the car before he managed to nab it. Again his skin stung just from very brief exposure, but at least the cylinder seemed none the worse for wear.

Nick then spent a frustratingly long while trying to open the cylinder. He couldn't figure out the trick; it had happened basically accidentally with each of the solar panels. Eventually, he realized that he was getting stuck in mental ruts and not trying the right things. He deliberately got more random with his poking and prodding, and finally found a press-and-swipe combination that triggered the damned thing to unroll into a rigid, flat board somewhat like a tablet. Mouth dry, Nick held the board up and hoped that it would help him.

At first it was blank. Nick had to go through another round of experimental tapping, but before long had found the 'on-switch' pattern. Colored pixels appeared on the surface and moved around seemingly randomly before settling into a specific layout. Nick checked, and the arrangement exactly matched the display on Petra, just scaled up.

All right, that's a little progress. Let's see if Petra will give me more details now that there's more room to display things. Nick started trying to rearrange the dots and icons. Many items wouldn't move, but a few did, and he started to make neat rows as best he could. There was still the big square with four offerings, one of which was the display panel. Nick cycled to the next one and tried to figure out what it was. It seemed to be a mostly blank oval, but when he selected it, a larger oval appeared in the center of the “screen.”

The color pixels rearranged themselves more than once while he fiddled with the “main menu.” Each corner of the square summoned a different pattern. He got a new surprise when a few pixels moved just before he touched them, and he could steer them with his fingertip hovering a few millimeters above the surface. When he held his finger still, several pixels seemed to rock back and forth.

Waiting for confirmation, maybe? Nick tried lots of gestures, and it turned out swirling his finger in a circle triggered the action. One color pixel of each pair joined a line across the top, and their matches took up various positions beneath their partner.

Fill levels! It was finally showing him how much of everything he needed to make stuff, and in a neat row instead of the random spatter it was using before. Nick selected each of the main menu items, and when he chose a submenu, the upper row of dots held still while the others moved up and down, giving him a rough idea of what he needed and how expensive each thing would be.

Or it would, if he could finish figuring out what the color code was. That also didn't solve the problem of where he was going to get the raw materials, but at least he kind of knew what he needed now.

Hell, I'm stranded on an alien planet with nothing but an alien rock, and I've already convinced it to make solar panels so it doesn't starve, and a better control panel. The situation may not cut me any slack but I gotta take my wins where I can find them. Now, what else can this thing do? What can I make?

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Nick really wished he could write down notes. He tried reciting stuff to himself.

“Okay, the first menu has the blank oval. Then, I got the power menu, and the square means solar panel. I don't know what the other four shapes are for. Now, I've got the display menu, with the tablet and three other things in a square. I wish I could build simple stuff like stone walls. What would that be under?”

Nick spent a lot of time trying a bunch of things and getting nowhere. He called up every symbol in each of the menus and checked how much stuff they seemed to need to build. I guess I could try building things at random, but I'm gonna run out of ingredients. It doesn't much like the food, so...

Nick's gaze fell on the bag of potato chips, then he closed his eyes. “Nick, you dumbass. Potato chips have salt. You don't have to feed Petra your goddamn sweat.” He shook his head at his stupidity. He hadn't actually wasted any time because Petra had to suck something out of the air and that went slowly. That helped him feel a bit less mad at himself.

Taking a breath, he went back to the very first screen, with the big blank oval he could write in. Or draw in, he realized. He got an idea. No idea if this will work. It all depends on how smart Petra is.

Working as carefully as he could on the tablet, Nick drew Petra's distinctive shape. Next to the output, he drew a few cubes, and next to the input, a rock. After a moment's thought, he carefully drew a specific rock that he had handy. His artwork wasn't great, but it was something.

Now, how to I tell Petra I'm done drawing? Nick pressed the square, the triangle, and the square in the corners in a bunch of ways. At one point he erased his whole damned drawing, and had to make it again.

While he worked, he carefully shifted the solar panels so that they were still in full sunlight. He noticed that the charge on Petra was up to over twenty bars and climbing. I wonder what happens when it gets to full charge? Can I make extra batteries? It was something to try later.

Finally, he stumbled onto the “done now” command. It was the "swirl finger in a spiral" move he had done before but forgot. He picked up the rock and pressed it to the intake on the alien device. Then Nick watched to see whether anything happened.

He almost missed it at first. He had to squint, but realized that his artwork had shifted a tiny bit. Petra was neatening up the drawing, making the image of herself—itself—more exact, aligning the cubes' edges at their right angles. It looked like Petra was waiting for some final command. Poking and prodding for a while, Nick was rewarded when the display flashed a few times.

Petra proceeded to eat the rock in its entirety and build little cubes in the exact proportion to Petra that he had drawn. He caught the first one, held it up and grinned.

“All right! Good girl, Petra! Now, all I need is to do this a million times and build a stone house out of bricks, and then I'll be safe from the Death Star.”

I wonder how long this is going to take. Maybe I should time it. Nick hesitated before turning on his phone. I can check the time too, and try to estimate how long a day is on BigBall by checking again when the Death Star sets. Having two things he could do made him feel better about risking his low phone battery on it. He fed Petra the other rock he had handy, checked that more cubes were coming out, and pressed the power button on his phone.

Seven percent. Make it count. It turned out to be just after six p.m. according to his phone. I've only been here for about eight hours. Feels like forever.

Nick tapped through menus and started the timer just as a cube fell off of Petra, and stopped it when the next cube fell. Thirteen seconds for a stone cube a bit over an inch on a side. That's...going to take a long time. He hoped that he could find a way to speed that up.

He was about to turn his phone off again when he saw the battery percentage drop to six percent. But that wasn't what made him freeze in shock. The icon next to the battery captured his interest completely.

He had bars.